A brilliantly witty book about the intertwined lives of psychoanalyst Ernest Jones, surgeon Wilfred Trotter and the guru of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud.
Welsh-born psychoanalyst Ernest Jones was Sigmund Freud’s closest associate and most fervent disciple. Clever, self-confident and intensely ambitious, Jones promoted psychoanalysis as a kind of secular religion. Meanwhile, his intimate friend Wilfred Trotter – a celebrated surgeon who saved the life of George V, and who took on Freud as a patient during his London exile – refused to yield to the seductions of the new Freudianism. A quintessentially English figure, Trotter was unimpressed by slick medical careerists, distrusted grand theories and lacked pomposity and self-regard.
Welsh-born psychoanalyst Ernest Jones was Sigmund Freud’s closest associate and most fervent disciple. Clever, self-confident and intensely ambitious, Jones promoted psychoanalysis as a kind of secular religion. Meanwhile, his intimate friend Wilfred Trotter – a celebrated surgeon who saved the life of George V, and who took on Freud as a patient during his London exile – refused to yield to the seductions of the new Freudianism. A quintessentially English figure, Trotter was unimpressed by slick medical careerists, distrusted grand theories and lacked pomposity and self-regard.
From the first psychoanalytic congress in Salzburg in 1908 to the illness of King George in the late 1920s and the meeting of Freud and Trotter in 1939, Seamus O’Mahony tells the story of these three figures and their intertwined lives with his customary wit and erudition. Not only the story of the development of psychoanalysis, this is a book about the sexual obsessions of intellectual and bohemian circles in London, Cambridge and Vienna, of Bloomsbury, of doctors in pursuit of wealth and fame. It covers a pivotal thirty years in European history, and reveals how and why the writings of a failed neurologist from Vienna became so influential.
Praise for The Guru, the Bagman and the Sceptic
“The real joy of this book – and it is immensely entertaining – is O’Mahony’s depiction of the ‘raggle-taggle army of failed neurologists, curious intellectuals, psychopaths, sexual opportunists, eccentric aristocrats and bored, rich dilettantes’ who followed Freud’s banner.” (Henry Marsh, the New Statesman)
“The Freudians were a rum lot. O’Mahony has a sharp eye for their foibles, and writes with wit and humour.” (Andrew Scull, BBC History Magazine)
“. . . this hugely entertaining story . . . this splendid book”. (Steven Poole, the Telegraph)
“O’Mahony has constructed compelling, comprehensive and overlapping portraits of the three men . . . This book will be of particular value to medical practitioners, but it also contains much to inform and entertain a general reader.” (Ray Burke, the Irish Times)
“This acerbic group biography takes aim at the ‘guru’ Freud and his acolytes . . . psychoanalysis . . . makes a juicy target for his [O’Mahony’s] first foray into historical narrative . . . vigorous enthusiasm and tremendous reading”. (James Riding, the Times)
“O’Mahony blends erudition with wit and a doctor’s understanding of human frailties”. (Peter Hegarty, the Sunday Business Post)
“O’Mahony is a retired gastroenterologist of some distinction who writes entertainingly and with some wit.” (Simon Humphreys, the Mail on Sunday)
“This is a beautifully written book in which much careful and original scholarship is made accessible through O’Mahony’s light touch, clinical gaze and droll aperçus.” (A.J. Lees, the Literary Review)
“Wonderfully readable and funny”. (Richard Smith, former editor, British Medical Journal)
“The quality of O’Mahony’s prose is superb . . . it’s an utterly absorbing work.” (Anne Cunningham, the Westmeath Examiner)
“this book is rich in detail and hugely enjoyable” (Vaughan Bell, the Lancet)